Germany rounds up anti lockdown gang in plot to kidnap health minister

Germany foils anti-lockdown protesters plot ‘to kidnap health minister, launch bomb attacks and spark civil war with the aim of overthrowing the country’s democratic system’

  • Far-right group United Patriots plotted to kidnap health chief Karl Lauterbach
  • They also planned series of bomb attacks to ‘overthrow German democracy’ 
  • German federal police foiled plot and swooped in on neo-Nazi cells nationwide 
  • Other would-be terrorist hoped to trigger ‘race war’ with 600 homemade bombs 

German investigators on Thursday said they had arrested four members of a far-right anti-lockdown group for planning violent attacks, including a plot to kidnap the country’s health minister.

The suspects from the ‘Vereinte Patrioten’ (United Patriots) group are accused of ‘preparing explosive attacks and other acts of violence’ as well as the ‘kidnapping of well-known public figures’, prosecutors in Koblenz said in a joint statement with the Rhineland-Palatinate police.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach confirmed he was among their targets and had received police protection.

Health minister Karl Lauterbach (pictured at a press conference on April 4) thanked state cops

The main aim of the group was to ‘destroy power supply facilities in order to cause a prolonged nationwide blackout’, the investigators said.

‘This was intended to cause civil war-like conditions and ultimately overthrow the democratic system in Germany,’ they said.

Investigators had identified five suspects aged between 41 and 55 and on Wednesday carried out searches leading to four arrests and the seizure of around two dozen guns, including a Kalashnikov.

They also seized ammunition, around 8,900 euros ($9,700) in cash, gold bars and silver coins and foreign currency worth more than 10,000 euros.

The Vereinte Patrioten group includes members of the far-right Reichsbuerger (Citizens of the Reich), who reject Germany’s democratic institutions, as well as opponents of the government’s anti-virus measures, the prosecutors said.

Responding to the news, Lauterbach said some protesters against Covid-19 measures had become ‘highly dangerous’.

A small minority have ‘not only become radicalised but are now about more than Covid and… are intent on destabilising the state and democracy,’ he said in a statement.

Germany’s centre-left-led government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz took office in December pledging a decisive fight against far-right militants after criticism that the previous administration had been lax on neo-Nazi violence.

A vaccine skeptics protest march outside Cologne Cathedral, Germany on Jan. 10 this year

Marvin E., 20, was charged with trying to form a terrorist organisation and weapons law violations after planning ‘race war’ (pictured on a CDU local election flyer in 2021)

Investigators last week swooped on alleged neo-Nazi militant cells across Germany and arrested four suspects in what Der Spiegel magazine called ‘the biggest blow against the militant neo-Nazi scene in the recent past’.

A suspected neo-Nazi was also charged this week with attempting to set off a ‘race war’ in Germany with planned attacks using explosives and guns.  

Marvin E., 20, intended from the summer of 2021 to launch ‘a civil race war’ over the next three years ‘to preserve the white population’, prosecutors in Hesse said.

Investigators found 600 homemade explosive devices when they searched his apartment in September last year, as well as a far-right manifesto in which Marvin E. called for the ‘race war’.  

Germany’s protests against coronavirus measures have at times drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators, attracting a wide mix of people, including vaccine sceptics, neo-Nazis and members of the far-right AfD party.

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post Shooting at DaBaby's North Carolina Home Leaves One Person Injured
Next post Bizarre 22m-wide ‘portal from hell’ opens up in Californian lake – leaving locals baffled